Christy Brown is a spastic quadriplegic born to a large, poor Irish family. His mother, Mrs Brown, recognizes the intelligence and humanity in the lad everyone else regards as a vegetable. Eventually, Christy matures into a cantankerous writer who uses his only functional limb, his left foot, to write with.

In Dublin, the crippled rebel Rory O'Shea moves to the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, affecting the lives of the residents. Roy is able to understand the unintelligible speech of Michael Connolly, who was left in the shelter by his prominent father many years ago due to his cerebral palsy, and they become close friends. Rory convinces Michael to move from Carrigmore to an apartment in Dublin, and they hire the gorgeous Siobhan to assist them. Living together with Rory, Michael...